First Take: Despicable Me 3: Oh brother, where art thou.

SYPNOSIS: Gru meets his long-lost
charming, cheerful, and more successful twin brother Dru who wants to team up
with him for one last criminal heist.

It’s been a while since an animated film has been reviewed,
but seeing as I’m seeing a fair few films as part of my ‘mega birthday marathon
of cinema’, one of them had to be a film that has been eagerly anticipated by
the family audiences. After two stand-alone films and the obligatory Minion
spinoff, Illumination has been losing their unique talent in animation with
lacklustre efforts including Sing and The Secret Life of Pets. But they are
finally back on form, and it’s obvious that they’ve put a lot of effort into
their latest film.

It’s directed well by series veterans Kyle Balda and Pierre
Coffin, as they deliver a tight 90 minutes of entertainment that the whole
family can enjoy, and working to a script from Cinco Paul and Ken Daurio, this
team know how to make this sort of film just work. However, there are a few
minor issues with the plot, but at the end of the day, the target audience will
be able to look past these problems. It’s animated brilliantly, and the score
from Heitor Pereira (with songs from Pharell Williams) makes it feel like a
true Despicable Me film.

The voice cast is just as epic as the first 2 films, with
Steve Carell returning as Gru once again, alongside providing the voice of twin
brother Dru. The rest of the cast (including Kristen Wiig, Steve Coogan and
others) are great too, but the highlight for me was the addition of Trey Parker
(one of the men who created South Park) I don’t know how he was able to hold
his usual style back, but his character injected some uniqueness into another
paint by numbers animated film.

THE VERDICT

This is another really neat, wholesome family film from the
team at Illumination, however, even with its flaws, another sequel is
inevitable. And that would be pushing things too far for this franchise- it’s a
brilliant trilogy.

RATING: 4/5